Chapter 13
Grande cite a soldats abandonnee,
On n’y eu mortel tumult si proche:
O qu’elle hideuse mortalite s’approche,
Fors vne offence n’y sera pardonnee.
Great city abandoned to the soldiers,
Never was mortal tumult so close to it:
Oh, what a hideous calamity draws near,
Except one offense nothing will be spared it.
Deja vu.
Once again, I watched my family drive away, though this time they had a considerable entourage. The van was loaded with wounded, as was the Simms’ pickup, which Cindy drove. In addition, Ken had hooked an old flatbed trailer to his backhoe, and it, too, was filled with wounded. Jim drove the backhoe at the front of the convoy, guiding his people like Moses headed for the Promised Land. All others walked.
Though I had never been to the Vogler plant, the others told me it was about fifteen miles north of Rejas. More than three hours at a brisk walk, and not many seemed to be walking all that briskly on this night. I guessed it would probably take closer to four or five, barring unforeseen problems. I didn’t care to speculate on what those problems might be.
Ken and I turned back to our group-twenty men and eleven women, all armed and dressed in dark or camouflaged clothing. Our firearms ranged from deer rifles to Ken’s AR-15 and, while the ammunition supply wasn’t exactly critical, if things got intense, none of us could afford to get trigger-happy. Once more, I wore my old paintball gear, complete with the trusty smoke grenades that had stood me in such great stead before. The faces around me were those of some of my finest students. Seven of them had been part of the Rejas police force.
I looked closely at those faces-Ken, the man who had gone from stranger to brother during the last couple of years; Mark, the quiet, gentle giant who helped me on the forges each morning; Eric Petry, Andrew’s father, who had obvious reasons for being with us; Sarah Graham, Rene, Jenna, James. I wanted to remember each one because odds were, some of us wouldn’t make it through the night.
Ken broke the silence. “I guess this falls into the security category.” He got a couple of half-hearted smiles, but most of us appeared to be too nervous to appreciate his humor. If they felt anything at all like I did, they were rapidly discovering that it was one thing to say you were ready to jump back into the fray, but it was quite another to face the idea after having had time to think about it.
“Security is my department,” he continued, “and that’s why I’m here. If any of you have any second thoughts, leave now and no one will think any less of you. I know it sounds a little cliched, but it’s true. We can use you to help protect the convoy.”
He waited a moment. “All right, then. Line up in single file. I’m point. Leeland, you take the rear. When we get to the edge of town, we split into groups of five. Odd man goes with me.”
Ken continued talking as we shuffled into position. “Our targets are the abandoned fabric store on Bellmont, the concession booth at the football stadium, the storage room at Felix’s Video Rental, the back room at Computer Outlet, and the B amp; S Furniture Warehouse. All of those places are major stashes of food, tools, and weapons that we need to get to the fertilizer plant. We also need to find as many of our people as we can and get them out, if possible. Just don’t take any fights that you can’t win. You can’t help anyone if you’re dead.” He stopped, then opened his mouth as if he wanted to say more. Closing it again, he took a deep breath and shook his head. “Everyone count off. One through five, I’m one.”
Sarah Graham was next in line. “Two!”
“Three!” “Four!” “Five!” “One!”
I finished the count with, “One!” I wondered if Ken had intentionally put me in a position to be in his group.
“Group One will take the fabric store on Bellmont. Group Two takes the football stadium. Group Three takes Felix’s Video Rental. Group Four, the Computer Outlet, and Group Five takes B amp; S Furniture. Everybody know where your targets are?”
We nodded. Once again, Ken looked as if he wanted to say something. Finally, with his lips held in a tight line, he gave another curt nod. He seemed to be reassuring himself that he was doing the right thing. “Okay, people, let’s go get ’em.”
Ken led us at a dogtrot back toward town. I took one last look back at the other, larger group leaving the house for the plant before I turned and followed Ken.
As we began the trek back toward Rejas, we could still hear occasional sounds of fighting, but they were becoming more and more infrequent, as if one side was being worn down. It frightened me to think that it was probably our people on the losing side.
As we jogged through the woods, there were several occasions when I thought I could hear the crackling of twigs breaking in the brush nearby. My imagination played games with me, gifting me with images of people following us. Once, I could have sworn I caught a flash of movement off to our left, deeper in the thicket. Convinced we were being followed, I dropped to one knee and sighted the carbine-dead center on an armadillo.
“Damn!” Sweating with nervousness as much as the warmth of the night, I cursed my panicked reactions and silently thanked Ken for putting me at the end of the line. No one else had seen my momentary agitation. Taking a deep breath, I hurried to catch up to the others while trying to ignore the myriad woodland noises.
We reached the edge of town, and Ken signaled a halt, gathering us together for a final talk. He paused, examining each and every face, much as I had done back at the house, memorizing, knowing better than any of the rest of us just how risky this was. “I can’t stress enough to you people just how important it is that you avoid the fights you can’t win. We estimate that there are probably close to four thousand of our people still in Rejas.”
Some shocked gasps and mutters erupted at the proclamation. Most hadn’t realized how many of us were still in there.
Sarah Graham asked what most were thinking at that point. “You don’t expect us to leave them in there, do you?”
“Yes!” Ken responded vehemently. “Some of them have probably made it out to the forest, and others are already dead.” I could see that his bluntness didn’t set well. “I would guess most of the others have been captured or are hiding. There’s no use getting yourselves captured or killed in a hopeless situation. We have to wait and plan how to get our people out the right way. Otherwise, we’ll just make things worse than they already are.”
Seeing he hadn’t convinced many of them, I offered an observation. “Listen.” When they turned toward me, I shook my head. “Not to me. Just listen. Listen to the town. Do you hear any gunfire? Any more yelling? Anything to indicate that anyone’s still fighting in there?”
It was true. The sounds of battle were gone. Rejas was uncannily silent, considering the sounds of just half an hour ago.
I pointed toward the outskirts of town. “It’s over in there. But, we have more than two thousand people that are safe, for the moment. I don’t like it any more than you do, but they have to be our first priority tonight. They’re depending on us.”
Ken shifted his weight, as if still uncertain of himself. “It’s our job to make sure they stay safe. Our job is to find some way of getting some of the supplies stashed in town out to the fertilizer plant, where they’ll do some good. Then, and only then, can we think about getting out anyone we find in Rejas.” He looked around, pleading
